Just Posted: Nikon D600 In-depth Review

We've just published our 23-page, in-depth review of the Nikon D600. Aimed at enthusiasts, the Nikon D600 offers a 24MP full-frame CMOS sensor and a 39-point AF system adapted from the D7000. In many other respects, it owes a lot to its considerably more expensive cousin, the 36MP D800. When we previewed the D600 we were impressed by its image quality and how many features it offers for the money. So how does it fare when put through our rigorous studio and real-world testing? Click the links below to find out.

Comments

I bought my d600 a month ago and I am constantly blown away by how well it auto white balances, manages auto-iso, and how flexible the dynamic range is. I am actually forcing myself to shoot manually for a while because it's making me a technically inept photographer. I also appreciate the smaller form factor, even with my fairly large hands the grip is generous.

I stepped up from a d7000 and what I appreciate the most is the much much brighter viewfinder for manual focusing. My 75-135 e series is my favourite lens right now.

BUT I have massive amounts of dust on the sensor... and FFS Nikon make a dedicated ISO button near the shutter ;)

well, unless you are a canon shooter, you dont know how conservative the default sharpness setting on nikon is, some prefer that to the heavily sharpened canon output,look at the halos on 5d3, it looks more pronounced than that of the 5d2, (which was about as pleasing as it gets without tippin over)

Wrong, I'm currently without a DSLR and had plans to join the Nikon camp, not least for the excellent lenses. However I've been disappointed with both the viewfinder (and lack of rear screen on off sensor) on the new D5200, and with the output of the D600. Factor in reports of oil and focus problems with the latter, and I'm just plan disappointed, my cash remaining parked in my bank account.

Ref D600 Have you looked at the "compared to" page at DPR? Try it and then come back and seriously try and tell me that the D600 is better than the Canon 5DIII, or indeed a range of other cameras...

Thank you for your fair and comprehensive review.The D600 appears to be a wonderful tool with fine lowlight and dynamic range allowing use of both DX and FX lenses.The "spot " problem of whatever derivation which you mentioned with your large readership may well get quick results from Nikon.If this requires a wet cleaning so be it but this will force many to buy the proper tools which need to be evaluated.Will Nikon require buyers to have these tools or resolve this problem by asking for a factory authorized adjustment. You have expedited the solution and will give potential buyers like myself with D7000 and D300 experience the ability to enjoy the FX panorama of primes and other quality glass. Thanks again for staying on top of this issue.Best Alan Klaw New Mexico USA

I find the start of the conclusion a little 'odd'. Hard to put into words, but it sounds like positively raving over normality: "it matches or exceeds the pixel count of every other full-frame system camera." (in italics to make sure we noticed the stress!) which makes it seem like there are thousands of rivals on the market!Also, it praises the 'flexibility' as though being so much more than anything else, whereas it just sounds to me what might be expected in a camera of this price. I don't want to be to 'extreme', but I could almost imagine they were on the verge of saying " and it has a viewfinder too and a lovely strap!"Come on DPReview! I wouldn't for a second think this is not a spectacularly good camera (it is, after all, the latet technology and thousands of dollars), but can we have a more rounded and balanced conclusion, please?

I think the comments by DPReview have to be taken in the light that Canon has announced a camera at the same price point tht is significantly below in megapixels and feature set for the same price point. Add to this the fact that this camera has a very compelling and competitive feature set by comparison to the current offerings from all other manufacturers for a lot less (5dIII, A99, D800).

indeed the Nikon D600 is the finest DSLR ever made. Perfect balance between high resolution and Iso performance. The colors are rich, images perfect, handling and construction are top notch.My 6x7 camera will sleep for a while now.

Ventur, you are of course right about the A850 though I think he meant cheapest FF camera you would ever consider purchasing. I am not sure who would buy that camera today given it's max usable ISO of 400.

I had to return my 1st D600 because of a reappearing spot on the sensor (suspected to be oil). I'm going to be watching the sensor of my 2nd D600 closely.

Still, the quality of the camera (the speed, AF precision & accuracy) is so nice that I'm willing to put up with an occasional wet sensor cleaning. I've invested in Eclipse Type 3 Sensor Swabs along with their cleaning solution.

Also, I'm not saying that the oil/dust problem is acceptable at all. Nikon needs to find a permanent fix for this and repair affected models for free including shipping. But this camera is so much better than my D300 that I just cannot go back to using that thing.

This is my situation coming from a D300 and want to move to FF. Sadly I have had no luck with wet sensor cleaning ( I always leave residue somehow) ) so I have been holding off until this is addressed.

*VERY* interested to hear what Nikon says.. I bought a D600 and had the same issue, and i've had to invest in a wet sensor cleaning kit and go that route myself.. I've had to clean it a number of times so far and is not the easiest thing to get perfect.. Hopefully the problem subsides with use.. but if it doesn't, i'd be quite upset if i had to do a wet sensor cleaning every 30 photos..

I have a hard time believing that this wouldn't have been spotted in standard QA procedure.

Whats the real difference between ``Mid Range Full Frame camera`` and ``Semi-professional Interchangeable Lens camera / DSLR``.Mid range is semi pro as far as i know. And considering that d800e has far superior sub 7k$ base ISO sensor than anything else on the planet, please tell me how is it ``semi pro``?

I love your site, but you have so many categories now. My proposition is do divide cameras by price factor:

Unfortunately, ranging cameras by price just creates different problems. The D600, for example, isn't a cheap camera, but it's relatively inexpensive for a full-frame camera.

And by the way - the D800 has been recategorized, it's now in 'semi-pro full frame camera', following the publication of the D600 review. That change hasn't completely propagated to the site yet but you should see it shortly.

"And by the way - the D800 has been recategorized, it's now in 'semi-pro full frame camera', following the publication of the D600 review. That change hasn't completely propagated to the site yet but you should see it shortly."

You mean mid-range and semi-pro? Lots of things - price is a good indicator, but it's what that extra money buys that's at the root of the distinction. So the D800 has Nikon's best AF system, for example, and highest pixel count. Yet it lacks the integrated vertical controls that Nikon offers in its flagship 'pro' models, along with a host of other things, which matter to the top 2% of photographers, but not really anyone else. So the D800 is semi-pro. Professionals can and do use D800s for serious work, and the camera is nice and rugged, but the D4 (or D3S) still have some advantages.

The D600 is 'mid-range' because its systems are mostly one rung down from those used in the pro and semi-pro models. It uses a tweaked version of an older (and smaller - with fewer AF points) AF system, it isn't 100% magnesium alloy in construction, and shares a very similar UI to the consumer-targeted D7000 and D5XXX-class products.

There are two ways of looking at what 'Mid-Range Full Frame' might mean:

1) Specification and design consistent with the expectation of a camera somewhere between and entry-level DSLR (eg D3200) and a full-blown pro DSLR (eg D4), that has a full frame sensor.

2) A camera that comes in the middle of the available full frame market.

Which do you think we're using?

The D600 is clearly aimed at a similar user to the D7000 (which is unequivocally mid-range), but happens to cost more and perform better because it has a full frame sensor - such that it doesn't make sense to directly pit them against one another. As such it makes sense to put it in another category.

However, although it is the level at which you can enter the full frame market, it's not comparable in any sense to something like a D3200, which most people would perceive as an 'entry level DSLR.' The term is slightly ambiguous but it shouldn't be that hard to work out what we mean by it.

Why not compare it to the 1DX or D4 while you're at it? It's a stupid comparison, unless you want to talk about the £1000 price difference between the D600 and 5DIII too. Or did you forget aout that? If you want to compare at ISO12800 which almost no one uses then you will find a small difference. The important performance is at ISO 100-800 where the D600's sensor makes a camera like the 5DIII look grossly over-priced, image quality is surpassed...

5D3 has worse high ISO performance than the D600. Look at RAW, in any shadow area, like the grey patch below the pencils. The 5D3 has more chroma noise than the D600 at ISO 3200, 6400 and up. You need to look again.

Based on what DxOMark testing revealed, DPR is right on the mark in their assessment of the D600 low-light abilities. They are close to D4 levels. Impressive.

@ fdfgdfgdgf , related to the one NASA sent to Mars recently, will that be enough to make you buy D600 instead of the other`CHEAPER´full frame cameras available from Toyota , Honda or Ford ?.

by the way, one is 2000$ and the other is 3500$ , one has Noise Ninja built in, the other you´ll just need to buy one extra .there is no free lunch :-) . that 5D3 is pretty useless now that the 1DX is " better at one stop over "(whatever that means,i think i got the point) than the 5D3, `according to your logic. eh? what do you say?

Outstanding in relation to the other cameras in it´s `Mid range , entry level FF cameras´, for the time being there are only 2, which DPR might have already tested and hence that comment, dont you think ;-).

fdfgdfgdgf , i hope that´s not your real name, boy, it´d be real stupid, just like your comment. i wish that´ll help you sleep well now.

I disagree. I checked the RAW files too and the D600 appears to my eyes to be slightly better at ISO6400 and above in terms of noise. The focus plane is slightly different in the 5D Mark III shot so some areas are sharper, but that has nothing to do with noise.

LOL, you have no idea what you are talking about do you.There is a discussion in the Canon forum that is pretty active right now showing proof positive that the Canon 5DIII files are heavily cooked.http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/41096464

Another well put together review, in such a short time, excellent job, well done . I mentioned this in the thread posted on the Nikon FX page: small typo pg 17: ""files from the D600 are hard to tell apart from the 36MP D600" RegardsTony

Well done review but the scoring is way off with the D800 scoring an 82% and D600 an 87%. I get the whole price/performance thing, but the D800 features the D4 AF module, better build quality and pro-level VF, better video quality including the ability to change aperture in Live View (a big one), et al, for only a bit more money.

DPR does really well with reviews, but they don't weight things like significance to the market. The D800 at 36 mp is a ground breaking DSLR prompting for the first time comparisons with medium format cameras costing many thousands of dollars more. It's the first DSLR with clean HDMI output in video mode. Add the D800E in the mix, which AFAIK is the first time there has been a FF DSLR without the low-pass filter. These kinds of innovations should always factor in reviews. Considering all these groundbreaking features and performance gains, the score of 82% is quite honestly a joke.

marike6,With the arrival of FF enthusiast-targeted DSLRs, we've created a new mid-range FF camera category. This will include upcoming models like the Canon EOS 6D, for instance. So we're purposely not scoring it relative to the D800. Your argument with the scoring of the D800 is well taken, and our plan is to re-evaluate scoring in general in the coming year. But I just want to make clear that the D600 is scored in a different category.

I have to add that the D800E isn't the first FF DSLR without a low-pass filter. The D800E still has two low pass filters just like the D800, the difference is that the second OLPF negates the effect of the first filter. If you're going to be so critical of reviews please be concise with your information as well.

@JDThomas You're being a bit pedantic, don't you think? Whether D800E has no AA filter or an OLPF filter that negates the effects of the low-pass filter, the result is the same. And this technology is a first for FF DSLR, no?

First for a DSLR, but not first for a FF digital camera. The Leica M-series has never used any OLPFs not even double layer negating filters.

It also wasn't the first DSLR to allow clean HDMI out, the D4 was.

Whether I was being pedantic isn't the issue. You jumped all over the review criticizing it for not giving the D800 the edge due to the features it has, yet you don't even know the specifics of what you're arguing for. I was simply pointing out that if you want to pick apart other people's work you should at least know what you're talking about.

Not having an AA filter is NOT a technology, it's the lack of a technology.It is just a design tradeoff.And there are gazillions of sensors out there without AA filters, from mobile phone sensors to industrial cameras to Leicas, Foveon, etc.

For some inexplicable reason in their evaluation of the AF settings of the D600, DPR fails to understand the advantage of software driven settings that allow the setting to be saved under the User Settings 1,2 on the mode dial, as opposed to hardware controls that would make that impossible. I feel DPR should at least point out the advantage of storing the AF settings that have been moved from a hard control to a software control.

Here is the quoted excerpts from page 11- Handling.:"This 'simplification' comes at a cost, however. Specifically, it makes switching between AF-S and AF-C, and indeed changing AF pattern mode, slower than it was Nikon's previous generation DSLRs. Using the D300S, for example, a quick flick of the left thumb is all it took to go from single AF to continuous, and a quick flick of the rear lever would switch from single-point AF to multi-pattern. With the D600 (and the D800 and D4) there's an extra step - a button press - in both cases. " - DPReview

The convenience of the U1 and U2 settings is stressed more than once in the review, but the fact remains - a hardware switch is simply - unequivocally - quicker than either pressing and scrolling or pressing and dialling. And personally I think reserving one of the 'U' settings just for AF preference, when you want to make a quick switch is a waste.

Your still missing the point that the hard switches come at a cost as well, which is that they can not be stored in the U1 or U2 settings, which cripples the settings option in this regard. Given the choice, I will take the software over the hard button approach so I can set up my U1 an U2 with different AF options. BTW, I own a D7000 which uses a similar method of selecting AF mode as the D600 and I find it quick and easy to change AF settings, even with my eye to the viewfinder.

I noticed that the dim viewfinder wasn't discussed other than to say that the 600 experience is the same as the 800 and 4. Having tried the camera out in the store, I was impressed with its shutter and responsiveness. The viewfinder dimness was a real let down however.

Quite honestly, this isn't something we really noticed as an issue, even when running the D800 and D600 alongside one another. That said, we were typically using different lenses on each, which would make a difference. I'll check this and update the review if necessary - thanks for the suggestion.

I turned it on and took photos in 2 different stores (big boxers like Costco and Best buy) with fellow consumers coming to the same conclusion, the viewfinder is unacceptably dark. You being used to a crop VF probably explains your enthusiasm, I have shooting Full Frame for a number of years, and maybe that can explain my less than glowing report. I am looking for a cheap alternative to my primary system since EVF in FF don't make a lot of sense unless you do video.

There is more to image quality than sensor noise levels. One of the most compelling reasons for professionals to use full frame cameras is the access to professional quality lenses with better optical qualities and with less distortion than APS-C can provide. Unfortunately, Nikon only has one professional zoom lens, (17-55 f2.8), designed for APS-C sized sensors. If you want to use professional lenses on the format they are designed for, full frame is the "must have" solution.

The 'oil issue' refers to the unconfirmed possibility that residue of some or other origin is ending up on the D600's sensor, which then attracts dust and dirt. We've observed (and will continue to investigate) the D600's unusual propensity to attract crud on its sensor and this is covered on page 12.

I think they could have beefed up the sensor and processing and left the D700 pretty much as it is and made a far more attractive stills set up, even left out Movies altogether to keep the 800 as a premium option in that respect (second thoughts it may leave them taking a kicking from competitors in the feature wars)

How can the lens selection be poor when Nikon has the largest selection of compatible (F mount), lenses of any brand in the world? For someone who claims to owns a Nikon D700 you don't seem to know much about Nikon lenses. Maybe you are spending too much time in the M4/3 forum??

To M Jesper, it was obviously not quite obvious; even to the poster...IrishAndy, as he just responded, and he was referring to resolving power, and having to upgrade to heavier lenses not specifically the 24-85. You are right though, ignorance is bliss.You must be the most blissful person in history.

To IrishAndy, Nikon just introduced a whole new series of 1.8 lenses that mirror the 1.4 lineup. Based on user reports and reviews, these lenses are performing extremely well and are not having any problems in resolving the D600 and even the D800 megapixels. If you get a chance to shoot them along with the D600, i think you will be extremely impressed.

As a D90 owner waiting for the D7100, this is so tempting to jump to FX Why do some like the 24-120 F/4 over the kit lens. The slrgear reviews were not very good. I wish the review had more DX crop mode image comparisons.

Nikon has revealed that it allocated ¥1.8bn (~ $17.6m / £10.5m) to cover the cost of warranty repairs and replacements for its D600 SLR in the last financial year. The camera has been plagued since its launch by a tendency to accumulate oil spots on its sensor, resulting in Nikon offering to replace the shutter mechanism or even the entire camera for free if necessary. In an investor relations statement on its website, the company says that it is taking the matter very seriously, and 'will be taking steps to restore confidence in the Nikon brand'.

Nikon has announced on its website today that it will replace defective D600 cameras with a new D600 or equivalent model. This follows up earlier news of the Chinese government ordering Nikon to stop selling D600 cameras and Nikon's previous service announcement to offer D600 users free inspection, cleaning and replacement of the shutter assembly, even if the warranty has expired. Learn more

The Nikon D600 had a rocky introduction in 2012, with countless users noting that the camera often produces images with dust/oil spots. Nowhere though is the D600 having as rough a time as China, were the government has issued an order to Nikon to stop selling the D600 entirely following an investigative report on CCT (China Central Television) that captured dealers trying to avoid refunding money to angry customers. Learn more

Nikon has issued a worldwide technical service bulletin regarding 'dust' issues on its D600 DSLRs. Nikon says that it has evaluated user reports and has 'determined' that spots on the sensor are caused by dust particles which are visible in images taken in certain situations. The company will be offering all D600 owners a full inspection, cleaning, and replacement of the shutter mechanism in their cameras, free of charge and regardless of warrantee status. Read more and find out how to get your camera serviced.

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